Now something not a lot of people actually appreciate and not a lot of people spend time thinking about is where you should hit your pitch shot to if you want to miss the actual target. Well a lot of people assume that from within 100 yards and in, you’re looking at the pin, you are looking at the flag and you are just taking dead aim and trying to hammer it in down onto the pin. Now in some cases that is true, but what you do want to be doing if you are going to miss a wedge shot, you want to be trying to miss it on the low side of the pin.

Now really simply, when you have control over your wedges, when you know your swing distances, and when you can judge the correct distance to the pin, because it’s only 100 yards away. You will probably be able to get a general idea of the slopes on the green. Now if you are hitting a shot, say a 60 yard pitch shot into a pin which is on a very, very steep slope from front to back. You know that if you hit that ball past the pin, and it doesn’t spin back down, you’re going to be leaving yourself a very, very tricky part. If however, you are able to hit that shot 60 yards on the dot, get it rested near the pin, or you can take that slide bit off if you need to and actually land it before the pin. You know that you’re going to leave yourself on the low side of the hole, and leave yourself an uphill part.
Now the thing is with this, you need to first of all seek gain control of your distances, over your swing lengths. But once you’ve done that, you can then start thinking like this a little bit more, you can start planning your holes out a little bit more because that is what the very best players in the world do. They don’t look at wedge shot and just go, “I’m just going to try and hit this close,” they look at a wedge shot and go, “I’m going to hit this close, but if it misses where do I want to miss it?” And if you missed it on the low side, then you give yourself an easy part, the chances are you are more likely to make more up and downs from this 100 yards and in distance.
2016-06-15

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Now something not a lot of people actually appreciate and not a lot of people spend time thinking about is where you should hit your pitch shot to if you want to miss the actual target. Well a lot of people assume that from within 100 yards and in, you’re looking at the pin, you are looking at the flag and you are just taking dead aim and trying to hammer it in down onto the pin. Now in some cases that is true, but what you do want to be doing if you are going to miss a wedge shot, you want to be trying to miss it on the low side of the pin.

Now really simply, when you have control over your wedges, when you know your swing distances, and when you can judge the correct distance to the pin, because it’s only 100 yards away. You will probably be able to get a general idea of the slopes on the green. Now if you are hitting a shot, say a 60 yard pitch shot into a pin which is on a very, very steep slope from front to back. You know that if you hit that ball past the pin, and it doesn’t spin back down, you’re going to be leaving yourself a very, very tricky part. If however, you are able to hit that shot 60 yards on the dot, get it rested near the pin, or you can take that slide bit off if you need to and actually land it before the pin. You know that you’re going to leave yourself on the low side of the hole, and leave yourself an uphill part.
Now the thing is with this, you need to first of all seek gain control of your distances, over your swing lengths. But once you’ve done that, you can then start thinking like this a little bit more, you can start planning your holes out a little bit more because that is what the very best players in the world do. They don’t look at wedge shot and just go, “I’m just going to try and hit this close,” they look at a wedge shot and go, “I’m going to hit this close, but if it misses where do I want to miss it?” And if you missed it on the low side, then you give yourself an easy part, the chances are you are more likely to make more up and downs from this 100 yards and in distance.